Experimental / Ambient
This album is unique, creating a soupy stage for some acoustic layers of piano, cello. Sometimes I hear music in my dreams, and it sounds like this - like a classical radio station carrying through something viscous, the melody and form getting lost. Some songs, like Late Night Drive and Sick Eros are cinematic and grand, others such as Belleville and You Burn Me allow the piano to come through, which sounds woody and deafened.
Favourite moments:
The swell of string chords that comes out of nowhere in Sick Eros.
Earthbound, and it's blissful, floating atmosphere.
More:
Raw Silk Uncut Wood, and a live performance of Atlas.
Classical / Ambient
A friend sent me this album years ago, and I keep returning to it since. The only full length album by Haron, stands out heavily from their other releases stylistically. It's an ambient album with some refreshingly clear, abstract piano leading the tracks. The album is bookended by two very airy pieces - Lotuseter, and Music for Elbows. There are then a pair of very ambient tracks, and a noisy experimental piece. These are ok, but I love this album for the opener, and the final three tracks that provide such a spacious and gentle score.
Favourite moments:
Foschia, with it's delay-like rhythm and climbing melody.
Lotuseter, as an introduction to the album.
More:
'Plafond 6' EP by Haron and Cucina Povera
Maher Shalal Hash Baz - L'Autre Cap //2006
Rock
(Isaiah 8:3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived and bore a son. Then said the lord to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. 'Quickly to the plunder'.) This album assembles a band of amateur musicians headed by Tori Kudo, who sings in english and japanese over a loose, sometimes in time rock, folk, free jazz backing. There is a punk sensibility to the songs, I could imagine them played by groups like The Only Ones or T Rex, but a lot of it sounds something like a marching elephant with horns and percussion strapped to it. There are only a few songs where it comes together into a cohesive rock song, like in A&U or Moving Without Ark. Tori consolidates the loose band with some simple and beautiful lyrics. "There is someone who is missing here, anyone that is missing here. I know I am missing here. It's me that is missing here."
Favourite moments:
Moving Without Ark, the jangly guitar lead and interesting lyrics being closed in on by the strange horns and lazy beat.
Sal & Zur, with picks up with an energetic beat. "Passing through before our lives was the purest love."
More:
A short documentary about Tori Kudo and Mahar Shalal Hash Baz
the river is tea today
Ambient / Pop
a short-legged dog
disappears like a bubble, hitting a tree
the boy chasing bubbles
soft as wax
Tracklist:
Ryuichi Sakamoto - War & Peace
my little airport - Sabina之淚
Faye Wong - 分裂
何欣穗 - 于是
Naiwen Yang - Fear
Lily Chou Chou - クライト
Waa Wei - crooked
万能青年旅店 - 早
Naiwen Yang - 那天
Mandarin Pop / Rock
Taiwanese singer Yang Naiwen’s second album, ‘Silence’ reminds me of the dramatic television soundtracks of my childhood. The more upbeat tracks thump with cheesy call-and-response choruses and studio guitars. It was recorded shortly after Yang concluded studies in Sydney around that time. Tracks such as Silence and Monster punch with a PJ-Harvey-ish rock scream. Sappy ballads can be found as in the albums closing cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Somebody’ and 那天. The songs that drew me into this album feature more shimmery guitars and soaring vocals, like 我给的爱, 静止, and Fear.
Favourite moments:
The break into English at the chorus of Fear, and the backup vocals that accompany it.
The unexpected electronic arrangement of 固执 that is immediately disturbed by the next track.
More:
Yang Naiwen - Surrender (From Ought To)
Jazz Rock
I didn’t (until recently) have a ‘dad’s favourite album’ experience of Steely Dan. Now I know every lyric on this album. This man is past-glory, somehow pathetically cool. Thank you to my dear friend who showed me this album, and enacts it’s sad, over-sharing protagonist when we are being silly. The lyrics make me laugh:
“I cried when I wrote this song,
Sue me if I play too long,
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be“
“I'll learn to work the saxophone
I'll play just what I feel,
Drink scotch whisky, all night long,
And die behind the wheel,
They got a name for the winners in the world,
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues”
“So outrageous”
Favourite moments:
The backup vocalists screaming the word ‘Peg’ on Peg.
The return to each verse in Deacon Blues.
Terre Thaemlitz - Fagjazz //2000
Deep House / Ambient House
This compilation quietly draws a hot, tempting line through Thaemlitz’s discography and many monnikers, from G.R.R.L to Terre’s Neu Wuss Fusion. Together, the tracks on this album move between the club, the bar, the theatre and the balcony. It’s ‘jazz’ all the way through; at points in a formal sense, but for the most part just an idea of jazz, lying somewhere in the shoulders.
I’ve been putting it on late at night. When I feel the need to squeeze a little more out of the day, I can land in the still, colourless mood of this album. The wandering instrumentals and intermittent, repetitive beats provide space for feeling sultry, contemplative. Not tender, but a little borderless.
From Sloppy 42nd’s this album wakes like turning to share a thought at a frozen, sleepless hour. By Superbonus I’m contemplating turning the lamp off, and patching together the components of my next day.
Favourite moments:
Turtleneck, and its soothing, percussive roll through clipped samples and acoustic sounds.
The four minute ambient intro of She’s Hard that comes after a few back to back club tracks, with a flute that returns from Sloppy 42nd's, this time like the lighting of an incense stick.
More:
Explore this special archive of writing by Terre Thaemlitz.
The ones that are only two in the morning
Sleaze / Rock
I don't know what to make of this cannon built for sleaze, unease, lolling about. Here are some lines from Enzo Jannaci, translated to english: those who have a job like any other, the ones who puke, the ones who care about the king, those who make love standing, the ones that are only two in the morning.
Tracklist:
Roxy Music - Ladytron
jonatan leandoer96 - Snake Ice
Wet Kiss - Sister Duress
CLOUD ICE NINE - Like A Bite
Brian Eno - I'll Come Running
Enzo Jannacci - Quelli che
Frank Zappa - I Have Been In You
Lou Reed - New Sensations
Scott Walker - Two Ragged Soldiers
Foxygen - Cosmic Vibrations
Fugazi - I'm So Tired
Spike Fuck - Greatest Hits (Suicide Party)
Johnny Thunders - Great Big Kiss
Foxygen - Middle School Dance (Song for Richard Swift)
Richard Hell - Time
Pavel Milyakov & Yana Pavlova - BLUE//2021
Ambient / Rock
Yana's whispery words sung over strong, repetitive bass guitar and just enough synth padding to fill the space inbetween. This record makes me calm and at the same time gives space for tender wants and feelings unresolved. I'd only previously heard Pavel Milyakov's work as Buttechno and this feels like the perfect pill in compliment to sharp and ecstatic dance music. Rock, but bare enough that it could be aligned just about anywhere.
Favourite moments:
The balance between voice (healing, giving) bass (timing, keeping) and sax (moaning, creaking) in midnight blues.
The playful psychadelic fiddling and mantra of blues denial. "What else except denial?"
More (if you want this all to fall apart):
Pavel Milyakov & Yana Pavlova - Wandering
Patrick Shiroishi - Hidemi//2021
Jazz / Free Jazz
I don't normally listen to frenetic jazz like this - I prefer smooth loungey sentimental stuff. I switched this album on while walking to the lighthouse and I loved the way the blaring horns start the record like a big ship that never left the town you're in. Later I read about Patrick's story behind this music, about his ancestor who survived an american concentration camp, about the perserverance and dignity of all people who continue to struggle. The conclusion marked by this furious jazz is the touching chorus that springs out of The Long Bright Dark that sings “Is This The End Of The Storm?”. Then the ship reminds us it is not and the album ends.
Favourite moment:
The entire dance of To Kill A Wind-Up Bird.
More:
Patrick Shiroishi & Noel Meek - Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets
Hydroplane - Hydroplane //1997
Ambient / Dream Pop
Melbourne indie band (previously Cat’s Miaow) released the year after I was born. Sparse ambient that bubbles into lazy indie songs.
There is so much in here: break beats behind bass guitar, dreampop guitars, noise interludes, a spoken word track in an Australian accent that sounds surprisingly distant for 25 yrs ago.
Favourite moments:
The way you feel by the time New Monotonic FM (Acoustic) roles around.
The metalic area behind the entirety of Beloved Invader. "The way I'm feeling now, the way I've told you how, this heart has been in use."
More:
The Cat's Miaow - Phoebe
POiSON GiRL FRiEND - Melting Moment //1992
Trip Hop / Pop
I love this album but the title and track names in particular. Even the idea that someone named their musical project ‘poison girl friend’. “Yes I am poison, did I hurt you? Here is my music”
The pairing of ‘the future is now’ and ‘those were the days’ in the list. Both true. Quoi?
HARDLY EVER SMILE (WITHOUT YOU)
FACT
THE FUTURE IS NOW
THOSE WERE THE DAYS
QUOI
MELTING MOMENT
Favourite moments:
The lyrics on Quoi. “Take my arms, I never use them.” “Why not take all of me?”
The closing minutes of Melting Moment, with spacious piano, strings, synths, and “I should never dream.”
More:
POiSON GiRL FRiEND - It's Impossible
